David Cameron churns out another Benefit Cap lie

130715benefitcap

Cameron’s heart really isn’t in this election campaign, is it?

Today he’s been rehashing an old lie about the Coalition’s Benefit Cap – that it encourages people into work.

The Cap – for those who have been out of the country or incapacitated in some way since 2012 – limits benefits to £26,000 per family. When it was first put in place, the Tories claimed that this was equal to the average income of British families, and people on benefits should not earn more.

That might seem fair – but the average income of British families – taking everything into account, rather than just wages as the Tories did – is in fact around £31,000. And that was just the first lie!

It wasn’t long before Work and Pensions ghoul Iain Duncan Smith was implicated in another untruth, when he claimed that the mere mention of the Cap sent around 8,000 benefit claimants scurrying into employment. It was another lie; he was reprimanded by Andrew Dilnot of the UK Statistics Authority for that one!

Now Cameron has repeated his assertion that the Tories will reduce the capped figure to £23,000 if elected into office in May – because £26,000 clearly isn’t humiliating enough for unemployed familes and he wants to make them suffer (his words may have varied from this).

According to the BBC, “He said he was responding to public concerns the cap, which sets a maximum limit for state support for individual households, was set at too low a level.” Too low – so he wants to make it lower? The man is demented.

He also rejected calls for Child Benefit to be exempted from the Cap – showing his true colours on the matter of child poverty. Cameron is all for increasing it!

Cameron claimed on Radio 4’s Today programme that the Cap was having the desired effect and that about 40 per cent of households which were no longer subject to the cap had found work. Tory figures are notoriously untrustworthy, though.

Also, when he says a policy is having “the desired effect”, what effect is that, exactly?

“The evidence is that the cap set at £26,000 has worked. Many thousands of households that were subject to that cap have gone out and found work.

“It shows that many who have been subject to the cap have been more successful in finding work than those who have not.”

Does it really? If so many people have found work, then perhaps Mr Cameron can explain why Income Tax receipts have fallen under his leadership?

 

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27 Comments

  1. jess January 27, 2015 at 4:50 pm - Reply

    “If so many people have found work, then perhaps Mr Cameron can explain why Income Tax receipts have fallen under his leadership?”

    Isn’t it obvious?

    They’ve been made homeless
    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/27/delays-disability-benefit-pip-claimants-mps-scrutiny?commentpage=1

    And the computers at HMRC cannot perform their basic functions
    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/27/uk-tax-system-hmrc-facing-havoc-complacent-approach-it-systems-watchdog

    And Ian [RTU] Smith says the moon is made of green cheese…so it must be

    And if you ask him any more questions he can’t answer David will turn a peculiar shade of red and gurgle……..

    • Mike Sivier January 27, 2015 at 4:52 pm - Reply

      So many questions… where to start.
      What happens if Cameron turns purple? Will he have to join UKIP?

      • jess January 27, 2015 at 5:32 pm - Reply

        If he turns purple and joins the kippers

        Will the two defects who left the tories, to kipper, join Marine of the pens?

  2. Tony Dean January 27, 2015 at 5:05 pm - Reply

    It is the lowering of the cap will “cause a stampede to the Jobcentre” lie Cameron stated in the Torygraph that has upset me, Iain Duncan Smith has already used the same lie.

  3. Daniel January 27, 2015 at 5:23 pm - Reply

    Worryingly, the BBC report that Labour have supported the cap in principle, but will also ask an independent commission to see if it could be LOWER in some areas! However, this snippet is only on the BBC as far as I can tell (Checked Guardian/Huffington, general search though won’t look at red-tops!) so can you see if this is true, or just BBC making up statements for their Tory masters?

    • Mike Sivier January 27, 2015 at 6:41 pm - Reply

      It appears to be true.
      Labour policy on social security is the party’s biggest disgrace and I’m not going to make any excuses for it.
      In fact, I’ll be putting an article together in very short order.

  4. Dave Rowlands January 27, 2015 at 5:35 pm - Reply

    And when will they introduce the “MP Expenses cap”?

  5. Gordon Powrie January 27, 2015 at 5:35 pm - Reply

    How many people/ families are actually on £26k of benefits? In our ward, one councillor reckoned the cap affected 12 (yes…. twelve….) families.

  6. Chris January 27, 2015 at 5:54 pm - Reply

    We are now in election mode when politicians will not be believed, even if anyone was listening. Fat chance.

    No-one reads newspapers nor watches the news. I’ve yet to come up someone bothering even to read the headlines on a newsstand.

    Most blokes turn a paper over to look at the sports on the back, or read an entirely sports paper in a cafe.

    We will have the lowest voter turnout in UK history, and pundits predict another hung parliament.

    But I fervently pray the Lib Dem Pensions Minister, Mr Steve Webb, the greatest liar of the age, gets the less than 400 votes the Lib Dem candidate got in the last by election.

    Instead pundits tell the daft idea that the Lib Dems will get 28 seats. What!

    Fiorst they lied on tuition fees, now they said we would all be wealthy pensioners. Yeah, and pigs fly.

    Because Mr Webb, has lied that everyone will get the £155 flat rat pension, when people retiring next year have had formal government forecasts as low as £55 per week with no tops up, from the merger of National Insurance and SERPs.
    This gives millions like me NIL STATE PENSION FOR LIFE
    Look under my petition on my WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT section, to see why, at:
    https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

  7. Pat January 27, 2015 at 5:59 pm - Reply

    Cameron thinks that attacking the poor will work well for him. Personally I think this scape-goating wore thin a long time ago. Cameron is a very nasty, unscrupulous and dishonest piece of work.

  8. concernedkev January 27, 2015 at 6:30 pm - Reply

    It is an utter disgrace when he attacks the incapacitated sick and disabled once again. The implication of being “workshy” sings loud and clear. Shame on him he exploited the victims and survivors of the “Holocaust” when he had a photo shot under the infamous “Work Sets You Free” gate last December. He and IDS are both Sociopaths who have no qualms about inflicting pain and suffering on the weak and needy. There is no difference between them and those who willingly visited torture and murder on millions in the 30s & 40s. One day the truth will come out THEN WHAT ?????

  9. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl) January 27, 2015 at 7:22 pm - Reply

    So he wants to reduce the cap by another £3000. Does he intend to increase the savings by allotting it to those who are unable to find work or who are disabled? All these reductions to people who so desperately need help are going to help those who don’t by way of tax reliefs.

  10. fashionbug68 January 27, 2015 at 10:06 pm - Reply

    I do not understand how do you come up with a figure of average british family income of £31,000 a year or the government figure of average british family income of 26,000 a year ? Is it based on people living in London ? Because I doubt that a lot of people earn £26,000, let alone £31,000.

    • Mike Sivier January 27, 2015 at 11:02 pm - Reply

      If you search Vox Political using appropriate keywords, you should be able to find the relevant information. Normally I’d have a look back myself but it’s late and it has been a very long day.
      I am fairly diligent at linking to my sources so you should be able to find it.
      Come back to me if you can’t.

    • james orr January 30, 2015 at 1:33 pm - Reply

      I worked for the NHS and can tell my income was nowhere near £26000! nearer to £12000.

      • Mike Sivier January 30, 2015 at 1:50 pm - Reply

        This is family income – not individual.

  11. Terry Hackman January 27, 2015 at 10:38 pm - Reply

    > Mr Cameron said that the promise of an immediate law after May’s election “tells you everything you need to know about our values”. <

    Don't it just .

    [ extracted from Telegraph of 26th. of the month. ]

  12. Tony Dean January 27, 2015 at 11:54 pm - Reply
  13. Rebecca January 28, 2015 at 7:08 am - Reply

    23,000 per year??? Hmmmm I wouldn’t scoff at that considering it’s 10k more than I earn a year! Benefits shouldn’t be based on average it should be on the lowest wage, I say lower it more or bring the minimum wage up to meet the benefits but never should people that don’t work get more than those that do

    • Mike Sivier January 29, 2015 at 1:34 am - Reply

      Most people on benefits don’t get that much – I don’t.
      The issue is that some people need more than that in order to survive, and need it in benefits due to no fault of their own.
      Personally I think a benefit cap is a valid idea, but it should be pegged at £31,500 for families – the average UK family’s actual income.

  14. Sasson Hann January 28, 2015 at 7:41 am - Reply

    I feel so sorry for those families in the south who have already had their lives made hell-like because of being forced to move due to the existing cap. Many never found new homes and ended up in bed and breakfast accommodation. Now they’ll have to go through that all over along with those who were already in areas with cheaper accommodation.

    People may say that the cap is fair, but if you have a larger household you can soon fall foul of it, not just in more expensive areas in the south. You’d only need say a carer and adult son living together, plus an out of work partner and another unemployed adult and you’d soon be affected by the cap. I live in one of the cheapest areas to live in the country, I’m also chronically disabled, If my chronically disabled daughter was to move back home we would end up having to pay full rent as we’d be affected by the cap.

    It’s also very disappointing to see labour backing this; as you suggest in a later article, Rachel Reeves needs to be very careful leading up to the election or the disabled and unemployed community will use their vote elsewhere.

  15. Susan Mitton (@suemitton1) January 28, 2015 at 10:57 am - Reply

    “the desired effect” is to totally eradicate the vulnerable, poor, sick and disabled!

    We don’t need a Benefit Cap we need a Rent Cap! A large proportion of benefits received is paid to the landlords. A further benefit cap will cause evictions and homelessness to rise. Families will break up Mental Health issues will rise and there will be more early deaths and suicides. This government couldn’t give a toss, we are of no value to them!

    I don’t really understand how 2 adults are capped at £500 and 2 adults, 2 children are capped at £500 (and I believe child benefit is included in the cap) How do they work out the figures, they just don’t make sense to me.

    What really angers me is that people who are fortunate enough not to rely on any form of welfare ‘believe’ that we get £26,000 per year cash in our hands, when in fact a huge chunk of it goes on rent and in most cases goes straight to the landlords (and there are many Tory MP landlords).

    A further benefit cap will be many peoples death warrant!

    Rachel Reeves is a disgrace and she should resign for supporting the cap. I have no faith in the Labour Party after hearing this news. The poor and the rich of this country live in ‘worlds apart’ from each other. The poor can quite easily dream of living a rich life but the rich have absolutely no capability of dreaming what it’s like to be poor. The rich are rich and the poor are beggars. The rich (government) treat us poor like the scum of the earth.

    • Mike Sivier January 29, 2015 at 12:29 am - Reply

      Child Benefit is indeed included in the cap. Cameron refused to take it out of the cap yesterday.
      That being said, I support a cap – but at £31,500.
      Further to your point about £26,000 cash-in-hand, of course that’s the maximum amount possible. Mrs Mike and I don’t get that. We don’t know anybody who does. Do you?

  16. Michele Witchy Eve January 28, 2015 at 4:02 pm - Reply

    Two things to note here: (1) IDS oft quoting his ‘forcing people into work’ theme. Considering that the vast majority claiming benefits (and to be affected by the cap) are already in work, this is an empty argument. (2) The argument that people should be ‘better off in work’. If wages consistently fail to pay enough to live then the only way to make people better off in work is to lower the levels of welfare benefits. Classic double-speak.

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